This is Great!

Europe's printed and hand-written books in the spotlight

By Elizabeth Savage, Senior Lecturer in Book History and Communications, School of Advanced Study, University of London

The British Museum houses one of the world’s most significant collections of early modern German colour prints. In 2015, Elizabeth Savage curated a display on the topic. Continuing research led to a wonderful new publication, Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum. In effect, this is the first major study of these rare milestones of cultural heritage and technology, including previously unidentified examples like the ex libris of Anton Woensam. The book, which pans medieval printing in the late 1400s through the Renaissance and Reformation of the 1500s in the German-speaking lands, does justice to the material through the detailed descriptions and reproductions it offers.

Ex Libris/Bookplate Anton Woensam (Anton of Worms), Arms of Johann von Metzenhausen (1492– 1540) as Archbishop-Elector of Trier, 1531–40, two-block woodcut (black, red), 175 ×…

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